Tuesday

That's a philosophy to which Linda Dee Hughes, an Amarillo native and local theater icon, wholeheartedly subscribes.

But few in Amarillo have played as large a role in community theater as Hughes herself.

"Linda is one of those rare people whose roots go very deep, but they're also very broad," said David O'Dell, Amarillo Opera general director.

For her pioneering work in children's theater in Amarillo, Hughes has been chosen as AGN Media's Woman of the Year.

Hughes, 71, has been one of the predominant forces in children's theater locally since 1979, when she was named executive director of Amarillo Little Theatre Children's Theatre Academy. It closed in 1983, and Hughes took the program to Amarillo College, where she founded the AC Theatre School for Children and ran it until her retirement in 2004.

Retirement didn't stick, though, and Hughes found herself continuing to run Summer Youth Musical, founded in 2003, then starting a new children's theater program, AC Conservatory Theatre, in 2011.

"She continued on with kids. I think it's a part of her," said longtime assistant and friend Mary Reynolds. "I think some people are born to (work with children), and she definitely was."

Hughes has shown "our community what children's theater could mean in the lives of those kids and provided (the children) the opportunity to learn the discipline of theater and the joy of theater," said AC President Paul Matney.

Matney called Hughes a "pied piper."

"I was able to observe just how deeply she cared about these kids she was teaching," Matney said. "You've got to go a long way to find somebody who's got Linda's passion and ability and just love of those kids."

Hughes didn't initially plan on a life teaching children's theater.

Her first career was in figure skating after falling in love with the sport at the age of 14, when her parents, Fairmon and Katharine Dee, took her to see an ice skating show at the Amarillo Tri-State Fairgrounds.

She spent her summer vacations training on the ice in Colorado Springs, Colo., then attended the University of Denver. After graduating there in 1965, she skated professionally with Shipstad and Johnson's Ice Follies.

In 1968, she returned to Amarillo for what she expected to be a short break. She never left.

She married Wayne Hughes, a former television reporter and current executive vice president of Panhandle Producers & Royalty Owners Association, in 1971. Their son Kristopher, who now lives in Austin, was born in 1977.

Though she found success on Amarillo stages, including co-starring with "Brady Bunch" star Ann B. Davis in an ALT production of "The Nearlyweds" in 1975, Hughes found her heart in directing children.

"Her love is teaching children. I mean, that's what she does and that's where she really finds her happiness," Reynolds said.

When ALT's old academy closed for financial reasons in 1983, Hughes founded her own program at AC with the help of Dale Roller, then the college's fine arts division chair.

"I don't think you can possibly give her too much credit because she is an amazing personality," Roller said. "She works well with the kids ... and brings out the best in them.

"She has that endearing personality ... that encourages the kids and helps them along," Roller continued. "She's made a fabulous contribution to the community and to the whole area, as far as that's concerned."

Sherman Bass, now the general manager of the Amarillo Civic Center Complex, was one of Hughes' first ACTS students.

"She's had a very positive influence in teaching (children) about theater and teaching them about discipline," Bass said. "When I got to college, there was a difference between kids who had been exposed to a good theater teacher and those who hadn't - not in talent, but in discipline.

"She starts that at whatever age she starts teaching kids, and it has a huge impact in auditions, in coming to rehearsals prepared, in showing up on time with your script in hand."

She accomplishes that by not pandering to the children, O'Dell said.

"She just understands how to work with them on their level ... without talking down to them, without babying or cajoling them," he said.

Though former students are now acting professionally in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Austin and elsewhere, only a small percentage of the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students Hughes has taught have decided to pursue theater as a career.

"The great thing that Linda Hughes (has done is) she ... taught them self confidence and taught them the joy of theater that they will carry for the rest of their lives," Matney said.

"It instills in them a sense of teamwork, of camaraderie," O'Dell said. "They're absolutely not all going to be professional actors or dancers or singers, but it builds self-confidence and gives them a sense of place in the community."

And, O'Dell said, that benefits all of Amarillo's arts groups and the city itself.

"These kids ... will continue to build the cultural fabric of the community," O'Dell said. "I do think that we see that already.

"There's a danger in Amarillo for us to say, 'This is our kid. This is my kid. This is your kid.'

"These (Summer Youth Musical) kids perform everywhere, and Linda has had a huge part of that ... because she's been involved in so many organizations," O'Dell said.

"She's a great big oak tree ... who spreads throughout the community."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.